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I.T. Soon

@isaactsoon.bsky.social
2.1K followers 794 following 615 posts

Writer of music, fiction, and scholarship. Recovering nihilist.

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Reposted by I.T. Soon
Lisa Fagin Davis @lisafdavis.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Over on VoynichNinja (an excellent discussion board with lots of solid linguistic & cryptological work), someone posted this new resource based on my (credited!) work that lets you visualize structure & rearrange quires, bifolia, and pages! It's incredibly cool and really valuable. voynichviewer.com
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I.T. Soon @isaactsoon.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
A meal of whatever you want!
static.klipy.com
Spared No Expense Jurassic Park
Alt: A bearded elderly white man (John Hammond from Jurassic Park) explaining to two white palaeontologists, "Spared no expense!"
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Candida Moss @candidamoss.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
It lives. I was honored to deliver the Hans Lietzmann lecture in Berlin and Jena a few years ago. And I am excited to see the results in print!
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Sarah E. Bond @sarahebond.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
My latest for National Geographic is on a stunning new ‘Fulgur Conditum’ inscription from Hadrian’s Villa that tells us a lot about how Romans reacted to lightning ⚡️ striking objects & the creation of sacred space. Thx 🙏 to Elizabeth Meyer & Alberto Samonà. www.nationalgeographic.com/history/arti...
nationalgeographic.com
The Ancient Romans Had a Strange Ritual After Thunderstorms
Archaeologists excavating at Hadrian’s Villa outside of Rome have unearthed a marble slab dedicated to Summanus, the god of nocturnal lightning.
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Alexiana Fry @alexianafry.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Calling all scholars of religion who are attending the upcoming #aarsbl26 meeting in Denver! I need your help, as I am using the current fun trend exemplified by "Subway Takes" to introduce the public to the world of (and the necessity of) religious studies - broadly speaking.
a gradient background with orange, teal, and magenta is the background. In a cream text, there are the words one line at a time "HOLY HOT TAKES." The first H has wings on it, the first O has a halo on it. The second o in the second line has flames on top of it, and the t has a "devils tail."
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I.T. Soon @isaactsoon.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
My new article on Hebrews and Concurrent Blood Sacrifice is now out with JSNT. This one took a long time to write (three years!), and I'm please to see it out in the wild. Enjoy. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
journals.sagepub.com
One Priesthood After Another: Hebrews, Concurrent Blood Sacrifice, and the Destruction of the Temple - Isaac T. Soon, 2026
This article argues that it is unlikely that the author of Hebrews, like many other Jewish texts from the second temple period, understood the sacrificial activ...
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I.T. Soon @isaactsoon.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
BTW the process notebooks are working so well this term. I love seeing students thinking processes. This is way better than any other assignment I've given.
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I.T. Soon @isaactsoon.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
I sound about a bajillion years old
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I.T. Soon @isaactsoon.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
My students this week were bemoaning when I talked about the gap between translations and ancient material: "What hope do we have for interpretation?" Ad fontes, young friends, ad fontes...
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Ellen Muehlberger @emuehlbe.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
One option for humanities classes going forward: don't schedule the class, schedule the work
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I.T. Soon @isaactsoon.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Also...it's a fictional lion?
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I.T. Soon @isaactsoon.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Didn't realize that Lewis's works have become this deuterocanonical for Protestants: religionnews.com/2026/09/23/m...
religionnews.com
Meryl Streep as Narnia's Aslan: Why some evangelicals call it blasphemy
(RNS) — News that Streep will play Aslan in "Narnia: The Magician's Nephew" has sparked casting debates similar to those over "The Odyssey." But for evangelicals, the concerns go deeper than culture w...
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maimonides nutz @maimonidesnutz.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
I wanted to show y’all what I’m working on here first! It’s a Lilith amulet in the shape of a C1 (atlas) vertebra. My thought is that if you have something trapped in the bone where your head meets the rest of your body, it will be both the upper and lower limit of who you could be in the world
A cracked vertebra with a dark blob like figure in the middle. Both the figure and the vertebra are covered in Hebrew writingA silver medallion with a loosely human blob in the middle. She is surrounded by Hebrew writing
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Mateusz Kusio @mateuszkusio.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Feel invited to attend all or any of the sessions in this new online public lecture series, entitled "Prophecy, Divination, Verification, and Failure in Antiquity and Beyond", which I am organising within the framework of my FWO project "New Perspectives on the Delay of Parousia" +
Poster of a new lecture online public lecture series, organised within the framework of my research project “New Perspectives on the Delay of the Parousia”, funded by the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO; grant number: 1214026N). Lectures, scheduled across the 2026–27 academic year, will be held on Zoom and open to the public.

Prophecy, Divination, Verification, and Failure in Antiquity and Beyond

(all times CET)

Friday, 2 October 2026, 5pm
Matthew Dillon (University of New England), When the Enquirer Misinterprets: Veracity and Prophetic Non-fulfilment in Greek Oracular Divination

Wednesday, 21 October 2026, 6pm
Hindy Najman (Oxford), Prophetic Ends: Vitality and Interpretation in Ancient Judaism

Friday, 6 November 2026, 4pm
Lindsay Driediger-Murphy (Calgary), Wake Up Dead Man: Talking Corpses and Other Misdirections in Roman Divination

Friday, 15 January 2027, 5pm
Robert Wiśniewski (Warsaw), To Catch a Thief: On Late Antique Thieves, Policemen, Neighbours, and Unexpected Benefits of Divination 

Friday, 5 February 2027, 5pm
Tucker Ferda (Pittsburgh Theological Seminary), Process Eschatologies, Interim Periods, the Question of Delay in Christian Origins 

Friday, 19 February 2027, 9am (note the hour)
Michael Hanaghan (ACU), Imperial Prophecy in Ammianus’ Res 

Friday, 5 March 2027, 5pm
James Crossley (Cambridge), Apocalypticism and the Development of Radical Traditions

Wednesday, 14 April 2027, 5pm
Hauke Rietsch (Brunel), Science, Risk and Prophecy

Friday, 23 April 2027, 5pm
Todd Lawson (Toronto), Protology, Eschatology, and the Seal of the Prophets in the Quran

Wednesday, 5 May 2027, 5pm
David Cook (Rice University), When/Where in the Week Is It? Specific Predictions and Their Failure During the First Islamic Centuries 

Friday, 28 May 2027, 3pm
Roland Boer (Chinese International Experts Bureau), The Interim Becomes the Norm: How Socialism was Transformed from a Brief Transition to a Long Historical Phase
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Tess Wingard @tesswingard.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
**COMING UP NEXT WEEK** ISMR presents, Prof. Michelle Armstrong-Partida, 'Enslaved Women & the Church in the Late Medieval Mediterranean' Online lecture, 13:00 EDT/18:00 BST, Mon 21 Sept Register for the stream here www.ticketsource.com/ideology-soc...
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I.T. Soon @isaactsoon.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
I’m spending a week in a class on this arch later this term and I can’t keep up with the developments
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I.T. Soon @isaactsoon.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Recently rewatched the FF franchise and can confirm I analyze those Films like I do Star Wars.
static.klipy.com
Leonardo DiCaprio Points: 'Yes, That's It!'
Alt: Leonardo DiCaprio Points: 'Yes, That's It!'
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Debby Sneed @debscavator.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
My co-authored article on a late 6th century BCE statue of a dwarf woman that was dedicated on the Athenian Acropolis was awarded a prize!
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Stephen Hopkins @phil-lol-ogist.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
I regret having to cut this from my book
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Julia Hillner @writinghelena.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Had a fabulous time at the first day of our workshop on The Nameless in History. Lots of fantastic inspiration from many disciplines on how to deal with this particular gap in our knowledge. Among others my terrific colleague Pia Wiegmink spoke about US memorials for the nameless enslaved
A woman giving a talk in front of a screen showing a memorial from the University of Virginia campus
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Arthur Urbano 🌍📷🏛️🛫🇮🇹🤌😷 @arturoviaggia.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
So much of the ancient statuary and portraiture study I've been doing for this book has led me to the discovery that once upon a time, scholars were so eager to identify the subjects as well-known historical figures that they made leaps and bounds to identify them, without any evidence.
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I.T. Soon @isaactsoon.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Yay! It's always a pleasure to be read. Thank you.
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I.T. Soon @isaactsoon.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Look for this work! I'm a big fan of the Cambridge elements series which has allowed up and coming scholars to engage with the incredible scholarship out there while widening the field in innovative ways.
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Alexi Chantziantoniou @alexichantz.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
looks like i’m joining the cambridge elements crowd at CUP. 𝘗𝘢𝘶𝘭 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘔𝘢𝘨𝘪𝘤 will be coming your way in the new cambridge elements in pauline studies!
the top half of the first page of my author agreement with cambridge university press, which names the relevant parties (CUP and yours truly), the element series (“elements in pauline studies,” edited by ryan collman and matthew novenson), and the title of the work (“paul and magic”).
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Asheesh Kapur Siddique @asheeshks.org · 07/09/2026
Academic humanities are constantly being forced into a defensive public stance. We ARE trying to fix this-see the World Humanities Report, which proactively shows the powerful contributions academic humanities makes to the world - but it doesn't break through worldhumanitiesreport.org
worldhumanitiesreport.org
Home - The World Humanities Report
The World Humanities Report Demonstrating the vitality of the humanities throughout the world
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Nathan Kalman-Lamb @nkalamb.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
Whether we want to admit it or not, every NFL game is a snuff film. It's long past time fans of the sport faced up to a reality that becomes clearer every day: American football is simply too dangerous. This year, turn off the NFL. Our latest in @theguardian.com @us.theguardian.com.
theguardian.com
CTE in football players is a health crisis. It’s time for us to stop watching
A new study offers more evidence that America’s biggest sport produces life-altering head trauma. The NFL will never turn itself off, so it’s on fans to do so
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Sarah E. Bond @sarahebond.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
Daniel S. Richter has a new book—which I am stoked about—looking at the Antebellum engagement with Aristotle by enslavers. We should all buy this book when it’s out in October (although $105 is high!), but here are some other thoughts too. global.oup.com/academic/pro...
Aristotle in the Antebellum South

Natural Slavery, Democracy, and the Ancients

Daniel S. Richter

Introduces the first account of how and why antebellum Southerners embraced Aristotle prior to the Civil War
Provides a new approach to the discipline of intellectual history that moves beyond the idea of "reception"
Describes how different political contexts and historical moments shape defenses of slavery
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Matt Gabriele @profgabriele.com · 05/09/2026
sharing again for the weekend crowd. the humanities aren't in crisis, they're under attack -- because they're dangerous to people in power, because they ask their students to imagine possible worlds.
from the article: "Our tendency to see religion as a matter of personal, interiorized belief has led us to view its study as intellectually niche—or, to put it in neoliberal corporate speak—as a “low-skill” distraction. This is true of how we view the Humanities in general, of course—that, as Lauren Horn Griffin has so well explained, they’re seen as little more than “personal enrichment.” But that, she continues, is a right-wing act of controlling unruly ideas, of pushing to the margins disciplines that ask difficult questions of “invisible” power structures—say they’re irrelevant, deny them resources, call them “unprofitable,” make them disappear. But faculty, especially but not exclusively in Religion and other Humanities disciplines, often work directly against these forces. Because the discipline of Religion is attuned to issues of (presumed) interiority as well as actions in the public sphere, it’s these faculty who are some of the best situated to ask uncomfortable questions of those in power—be they federal policymakers or university administrators. 

At (regional) public universities like ours, this means highlighting a population that is quite different by class, race, gender, and sexuality than found at, for example, the Ivies. Humanities education, including Religious Studies, helps inure students to authoritarian thinking. At their best, the Humanities are attentive to the frictions that create lived experiences—particularly those that are oftentimes marginalized. The Humanities explain how things have been different, could have been different, could be different now, and may be different in the future. They are about possible worlds."
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Prof. Dr Beth Singler @bvlsingler.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
I met someone at a conference in the Summer who told me this piece was coming. I had my own run-ins with him while I was at Cambridge, so I am glad more is coming out into the open www.ft.com/content/c2d0...
ft.com
James Orr and the gospel of the new British right
Reform’s policy head is a Cambridge theologian with an enviable contact book and a belief in ‘faith, family and flag’
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I.T. Soon @isaactsoon.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
My favourite kind of nugget meal. 🫡
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Tony Burke @tonyburke.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
Seven (?) years in the making, submitted to my editors yesterday. 624 pages, covering almost 400 texts but 100 or so pages over my page limit. Happy to leave this in the hands of the editors for a while and move on to something else (or just get more sleep). My thanks to all who helped along the way
Draft of opening page to Introduction to Christian Apocrypha by Tony Burke
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I.T. Soon @isaactsoon.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
I think it’ll work and students will like getting credit for thinking. How are you keeping track of their notebooks? are you thinking check ups or weekly uploads?
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I.T. Soon @isaactsoon.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
I’ve just implemented them in my syllabi this term as a trial (based on other professors at my university using it for success). I am making it part of the grade because I’m trying to move toward processing the unseen processes rather than final product. fingers crossed.
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Dr. Elizabeth Schrader Polczer @libbiesp.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
@joantaylor.bsky.social we did it!! We got the Bible changed! Honestly I wasn't even thinking about how the footnotes might change in Matthew 27 and Luke 8. These updated footnotes are in the brand-new third edition of the Jewish Annotated New Testament. Buy it here: global.oup.com/academic/pro...
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Nina Willburger @drnwillburger.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
Another museum heist has occurred, with the Bronze Age hoard of Villena being stolen. This collection comprises artifacts crafted from gold, silver, and amber. de.euronews.com/kultur/2026/...
share.google
Diebe stehlen Bronzezeit-Schatz von Villena in unter vier Minuten
Die Diebe lösten am Stadtrand von Villena einen falschen Alarm aus, lenkten so die Sicherheitskräfte ab und stahlen im Museum 59 prähistorische Exponate in weniger als vier Minuten.
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I.T. Soon @isaactsoon.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
I know right
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I.T. Soon @isaactsoon.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
200+ damage for every pang of cute aggression I feel
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Caroline (Carrie) T. Schroeder @ctschroeder.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
Amy-Jill Levine is one of the most important living biblical studies scholars and has had immense effects on the field and the public. The Catholic Biblical Association — a prof society AJL has been active in for decades — has elected her pres. Some have responded w/ hateful, antisemitic reactions+
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I.T. Soon @isaactsoon.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
Can attest these are often the highlights of my week. So much to learn!
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I.T. Soon @isaactsoon.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
static.klipy.com
Man's Funny Exasperated Face
Alt: Man with a moustache bursts into laughter.
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I.T. Soon @isaactsoon.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
Hey!! Hope you enjoy it.
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Ana Marie Cox @anamariecox.com · 15/08/2026
TW: Suicide If you tell people you have SI, many are likely to suggest you call 988 or text the suicide lifeline. These are good resources *if you need to be kept physically safe;* they are not as helpful if your ideations are passive. Allow me to share some things that have helped me. /1
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I.T. Soon @isaactsoon.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
Go out*
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I.T. Soon @isaactsoon.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
That post is so sad. And posting about it rather than trying to out also is so bleak.
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I.T. Soon @isaactsoon.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
It might give a feeble offering with one hand, but it certainly takes much more with the other.
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I.T. Soon @isaactsoon.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
What’s more, the use of a tool that relies on data centres that guzzle water, disable the inhabitants around them, and punishes the land and people on which it occupies is tantamount to using further colonizing power and mechanisms to right the wrongs of colonization in the first place.
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I.T. Soon @isaactsoon.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
An instrument like Claude might give information, but in the process of recovering Indigenous family and history, it certainly does not give knowledge.
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I.T. Soon @isaactsoon.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
Because it cannot ground itself in the kind of knowledge that Indigenous peoples in Canada emphasize, in community, memory, connection, and land, a machine like Claude cannot access the kind of truth needed for reconciliation and certainly not resurgence.
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I.T. Soon @isaactsoon.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
they dreamed together of a future for themselves, for their children, and for their ancestors. What machine can do this work? What dataset can we feed it to replace this soullabour necessary for Indigenous Truth and Reconciliation?
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I.T. Soon @isaactsoon.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
I watched the staff there not just dole out facts to people. They sat with them and listened to their stories, they did truth walks around the halls and fields and spaces of horror where children lived and where they now lay, they sat in council offering tobacco to foster good medicine,
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